You are just wrong. You would ha e said the same about Obama when he started. I live in Los Angeles. I don't k is ONE democrat under 30 who wants to vote for Hillary. Her corporatism and hawkish politics disgusts them. They are energized by Sanders.

I used to fly as a child. Not really "fly", but I could glide like Superman if I ran really fast and then tried flying . Sometimes I could glide over the trees. Many years ago, while sitting around

a college dinner table at Yale, many of my classmates had the same memory. (The others, the non-flying contingent, lol, sat back with looks of amusement , bewilderment, shock and that look you have when you are trying to figure out if you are being punked). Now I am pretty sure I never flew. I think. But damn the memories are vivid.

But in n=1 studies, the scientific community sure thinks their 'data' are a whole lot more important than just a glorified and formalized anecdote.

I have such a pet peeve about this little “aphorism.”

It’s not that I don’t get what it’s supposed to mean. I do. I completely do. It’s just that it is such a bastardization of language and truth to get there that it’s more trouble than it’s worth. What a terrible idea it would be to start defining the broad term “data” as exclusive of those things you don’t wish were there. That’s how one gets to confirmation bias.

The main point is, a group of anecdotes absolutely, positively, undeniably, incontrovertibly qualifies as “data”. There can be no reasonable dispute about this. It is a necessary conclusion from the structure of the English language and plain meaning of the word.

Yes, it is true that a group of anecdotes rarely qualifies as compelling data.

And yes, a group of anecdotes will rarely fit the qualifications for the data set one is trying to investigate.

This may seem a small point, but I think not. The problem with having an aphorism be literally untrue on its face is that it will be extremely prone to misinterpretation.

Many times, the world only provides one with small sample sizes. In that case, all one has are anecdotes. And--if there is no broader sample to collect information from-- it is better to base your decision-making on those anecdotes than no information at all. This is just a longtime, mostly unavoidable heuristic we must adopt to navigate the world with things we neither have the pristine data sets (or time) to get right.

Of course it is better to use methodically gathered data sets than haphazardly gathered ones. That does not, however, change the plain meaning of the word “data.”